Tag: trumps

The initial record also listed an empty construction lot in New Jersey as the Tonellis’ address. It was later shown to be the former address of a bank that wired the money to the committee in the Tonellis’ name. The system handed out purchasing codes to Trump campaign donors and local GOP committees, which then distributed them. When a donor bought tickets to an inaugural ball, instead of registering their home address, as required by law, the Trump system registered the address associated with

Smaller errors included things such as reporting to the FEC that a donation of $400,000 from longtime GOP donor Isabel Tonelli instead came from someone named “Isabel T. John.” John is the name of Tonelli’s husband.

The initial record also listed an empty construction lot in New Jersey as the Tonellis’ address. It was later shown to be the former address of a bank that wired the money to the committee in the Tonellis’ name.

In another case, the staff went beyond an accidental mistake and deliberately filed false information for a donor they couldn’t identify, filling in the record with the address of a celebrity by the same name.

Katherine Johnson was the name of a NASA mathematician who was featured in the biopic “Hidden Figures.” So when committee staffers needed to fill in an address for a donor named Katherine Johnson who gave Trump $25,000, in order to comply with federal law, instead of finding the real address they wrote in the address of NASA headquarters.

When the Katherine Johnson from the movie, who was in her late 90s and had been retired from NASA for decades, was asked about her apparent “donation” to Trump’s inauguration, her family said she had never made any such gift.

Only when the committee was confronted with their effort to fudge the record did a spokesperson admit that they made up the address, and that the Katherine Johnson who made the donation actually lived in California.

These were far from the only records that were misreported. Another reason scores of records were wrongly reported is that the Republican National Committee used a faulty system of ticketing, part of a broader effort to ensure that only Trump’s actual supporters were permitted to buy tickets to the inaugural balls, and not protesters or spoilers.

The system handed out purchasing codes to Trump campaign donors and local GOP committees, which then distributed them. But the codes quickly made their way to Facebook, where they were swapped and purchased.

When a donor bought tickets to an inaugural ball, instead of registering their home address, as required by law, the Trump system registered the address associated with the code they used to buy the tickets.

As a result, hundreds of donations appeared to come from people who lived in House and Senate office buildings.

It was only after I reached out in April 2017 about the errors discovered by the volunteers that the committee admitted what had happened.

“We plan to amend our report to reflect any changes that we have become aware of, including many of those donor records or technical glitches that we have recently become aware of, as is common practice with FEC reporting,” an inaugural committee spokesman, Alex Stroman, told me at the time.

The U.S.-Mexico border stretches 1,954 miles. The rest of the border is rugged landscapes and natural barriers like the Rio Grande River. While the debate over Donald Trump’s proposed wall continues, government money is flowing, and tech companies are looking to cash in. Companies like Quanergy and Anduril are working on electronic border solutions that would be more effective and cheaper for taxpayers than building a physical wall. CNBC traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border town of Del Rio, Texas

The U.S.-Mexico border stretches 1,954 miles. About 700 of those miles have some sort of barricade or fence. The rest of the border is rugged landscapes and natural barriers like the Rio Grande River.

While the debate over Donald Trump’s proposed wall continues, government money is flowing, and tech companies are looking to cash in. Companies like Quanergy and Anduril are working on electronic border solutions that would be more effective and cheaper for taxpayers than building a physical wall.

CNBC traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border town of Del Rio, Texas to see a prototype of a virtual wall, and also found out why locals in the area would rather electronic surveillance over a physical barrier.

This much is clear as 2018 screeches toward a close:President Trump’s foreign policy has shredded the status quo on a range of issues, from global trade and transatlantic relations to Iran and North Korea. Global markets have underestimated the stakes, largely responding to momentary events — Trump tariff tweets and tentative trade truces. They should instead be banking in the generational nature of this drama, and its potential impact on debt, currency, tech and equity markets of all sorts. Whe

President Trump’s foreign policy has shredded the status quo on a range of issues, from global trade and transatlantic relations to Iran and North Korea.

Yet it is the Trump administration’s tough turn on China, captured dramatically by Vice President Mike Pence’s landmark speech at the Hudson Institute in October, that will have the most lasting global consequence, altering the terms of the epochal contest of our times.

They should instead be banking in the generational nature of this drama, and its potential impact on debt, currency, tech and equity markets of all sorts.

And on global peace and prosperity.

It isn’t that individual events lack importance. Whether or not President Trump and President Xi can reach a trade deal that will satisfy both sides by their deadline of March 1 will be a signal of whether the two sides can negotiate modi vivendi on tough matters.

However, the recent arrest in Canada of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou may be the more important indicator in the accelerating tech arms race.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Sunday he considers March 1 “a hard deadline” to reach a deal on trade with China, and that new tariffs will be imposed otherwise. “As far as I am concerned it is a hard deadline. When I talk to the president of the United States he is not talking about going beyond March,” Lighthizer said on the CBS show “Face the Nation,” referring to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to delay tariff imposition until March 1 while talks proceed. “The w

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Sunday he considers March 1 “a hard deadline” to reach a deal on trade with China, and that new tariffs will be imposed otherwise.

“As far as I am concerned it is a hard deadline. When I talk to the president of the United States he is not talking about going beyond March,” Lighthizer said on the CBS show “Face the Nation,” referring to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to delay tariff imposition until March 1 while talks proceed.

“The way this is set up is that at the end of 90 days, these tariffs will be raised,” said Lighthizer, appearing to tamp down expectations that the negotiation period could be extended.

Trade frictions between the world’s two largest economies go well beyond the parameters of imports and exports. Washington has been attempting to negotiate with Beijing about issues like forced tech transfers and intellectual property theft, but there’s a growing sense among international analysts that talks may also be touching on other deep-rooted issues in their relationship, particularly on the national security and military front. The ongoing spat is a reflection of great power rivalries, p

Trade frictions between the world’s two largest economies go well beyond the parameters of imports and exports.

Washington has been attempting to negotiate with Beijing about issues like forced tech transfers and intellectual property theft, but there’s a growing sense among international analysts that talks may also be touching on other deep-rooted issues in their relationship, particularly on the national security and military front.

The ongoing spat is a reflection of great power rivalries, political scientist Joseph Nye wrote in a Project Syndicate editorial last month: “It is much more than a typical trade dispute like, say, America’s recent clash with Canada over access to that country’s dairy market.”

Many economists have pointed out that the current dispute is more of a tech war than a tariff war as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration targets China’s technology sector practices. Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea and the sovereignty of Taiwan could also be influencing negotiations.

“That will not work,” Samuelsson added, noting that Volvo would consider shifting some production from Charleston to China, impacting production levels and hiring at the plant. He concluded by describing himself as a “Tariff Man,” adding that the U.S. is “now taking in $billions in Tariffs. Perhaps, but the auto industry, in particular, has been hard hit by both the Chinese trade war and tariffs on imported aluminum and steel. BMW said it employs 10,000 people at its Spartanburg plant and has pl

But with tariffs at 40 percent, analysts have measured a sharp slowdown in demand for American made vehicles.

“We…thought Charleston could build cars for China,” Volvo’s global CEO Hakan Samuelsson told USA Today during an interview at the Los Angeles Auto Show last Wednesday. “That will not work,” Samuelsson added, noting that Volvo would consider shifting some production from Charleston to China, impacting production levels and hiring at the plant.

Other automakers could follow.

Industry officials continue to hope for a quick settlement, but the fast retreat from Trump’s earlier statements isn’t offering them encouragement.

“It doesn’t seem like anything was actually agreed to at the dinner and White House officials are contorting themselves into pretzels to reconcile Trump’s tweets (which seem if not completely fabricated then grossly exaggerated) with reality,” said an investor note issued by JPMorgan.

Discerning what is real right now isn’t easy. Trump’s National Economic Council advisor Larry Kudlow tried to strike an update note while acknowledging to Fox News a deal “hasn’t been signed and sealed and delivered yet.”

The president himself offered what could, at best, be called a confusing attempt at clarification. His Tuesday tweets said “The negotiations with China have already started,” Trump adding that his White House team will be “seeing whether or not a REAL deal with China is actually possible. If it is, we will get it done.”

He concluded by describing himself as a “Tariff Man,” adding that the U.S. is “now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN.”

Perhaps, but the auto industry, in particular, has been hard hit by both the Chinese trade war and tariffs on imported aluminum and steel. The latter duties will cost General Motors and Ford about $1 billion each, the companies have now estimated. Lower exports to China will further strain their balance sheets.

Trump, meanwhile, last week signaled he is still itching to open up a third front in his global trade war, urging Congress to support what could be up to 25 percent tariffs on vehicles imported from other trade partners, such as Germany. Leaders of the European Union have signaled they would echo the response of China, saddling U.S.-made vehicles with new tariffs in response.

European auto industry leaders met with the president on Tuesday and the White House issued a statement saying, Trump “shared his vision of all automakers producing in the United States and creating a more friendly business environment.”

In fact, European automakers have rapidly expanded their manufacturing base in the U.S. in recent years. That includes not only the new Volvo plant but also at the BMW Spartanburg facility and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz factory in Vance, Alabama.

BMW said it employs 10,000 people at its Spartanburg plant and has plans to hire 1,000 more by 2021.

“Free trade has made the success story of BMW in the US possible,” the company said in a statement Tuesday, adding that 70 percent of the cars made in Spartanburg last year were exported to more than 120 countries. China was the No. 1 destination followed by the company’s home country Germany. The company said it wants to ramp up production in North America and is considering — although hasn’t yet decided — whether to set up a second plant in the U.S. to make power trains.

The stock market pulled back Tuesday with the Dow falling by as much as 800 points after an initial surge, reflecting Trump’s misdirection on trade talks. General Motors, which not only exports some models to China but also imports the Chinese-made Envision SUV, fell 5 percent to $36.52 a share. Ford slid 4.4 percent to $9.18 a share. Toyota dropped 1.72 percent to $120.88 a share.

One of the few automotive stocks to score a gain on Tuesday was Tesla which only recently began work on a new factory in Shanghai that eventually will let it sidestep the tariff battle. The California-based electric vehicle manufacturer was one of the few automakers that didn’t fall, closing up by less than 1 percent to $359.70 a share.

WATCH: Twelve US execs explain how Trump’s trade war affects their bottom lines

Others speculated more charges could have been unveiled against Flynn in Tuesday’s sentencing memo. But Flynn’s plea agreement with Mueller says he is eligible for a sentence ranging from zero to six months behind bars. Not everyone viewed the sentencing memo as an hors d’oeuvre on Mueller’s full menu of criminal discoveries. Flynn’s lawyers will file their own version of the sentencing memo by Dec. 11, followed by a reply from the government three days later. “The cooperation does not appear to

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s glowing performance review of star witness and former national security advisor Michael Flynn suggests there are more shoes to drop in the ongoing probe of Russian election interference.

Mueller said in the sentencing memo that Flynn, 60, had provided “firsthand insight” over the course of 19 interviews with special counsel investigators and Justice Department attorneys, and that his benefits to their work “may not be fully realized” until the investigations are finished.

The filing reveals that Flynn’s cooperation extended beyond the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible coordination between Trump campaign-related figures and the Kremlin.

One lengthy section, almost entirely blacked out, points to a separate and unspecified “criminal investigation” in which Flynn had “provided substantial assistance” to investigators.

“Mueller still has many more revelations to drop, and they’re going to land hard,” former federal prosecutor Elie Honig wrote in a CNN op-ed about the memo.

White-collar attorney Sol Wisenberg, who was deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation into then-President and first lady Bill and Hillary Clinton, said on Fox News that “the memo itself is kind of a dud,” but only because “all the good stuff is redacted.”

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to a single count of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Flynn spoke to Kislyak during the presidential transition period about sanctions slapped on Russia by President Barack Obama in December 2016, in retaliation for that country’s attempts to interfere in the presidential election.

Some legal minds at the time considered the one-count plea agreement a “sweetheart deal” in light of previously revealed potential offenses Flynn was alleged to have committed, such as making false statements in documents he retroactively filed when registering as a foreign agent for Turkey. Others speculated more charges could have been unveiled against Flynn in Tuesday’s sentencing memo.

“Flynn could have been subjected to additional charges that would have considerably raised that calculus,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said Wednesday on MSNBC. But the fact that his plea continued to include just one charge of lying to the government “tells me that he really brought something valuable to the table,” Vance added.

Lying to the FBI carries a possible maximum sentence of five years in prison. But Flynn’s plea agreement with Mueller says he is eligible for a sentence ranging from zero to six months behind bars.

Before the memo was made public, professor David Shapiro of John Jay College of Criminal Justice said he would be looking to see why Flynn’s plea deal gave that lenient sentencing range. “I would be seeking reasons why this case was both given intense scrutiny and pleaded downward,” Shapiro said in an email. “‘Where’s the beef?'”

After reading the filing, Shapiro said, “It overwhelmingly compels the conclusion that more is to come” from Mueller.

Not everyone viewed the sentencing memo as an hors d’oeuvre on Mueller’s full menu of criminal discoveries.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is representing Trump in the Mueller probe, reportedly sent a text to a Politico reporter appearing to derisively suggest that the filing produced nothing of value.

Flynn’s lawyers will file their own version of the sentencing memo by Dec. 11, followed by a reply from the government three days later.

The favorable treatment Flynn received from Mueller in the memo contrasts sharply with the special counsel’s recent revelation that Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, had lied to investigators after striking his own plea deal. Manafort was convicted in August on eight criminal counts related to work he did for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine years before joining Trump’s campaign. He pleaded guilty to other charges lodged by Mueller in September, just before his second trial began.

Mueller is expected to file another court document later this week in connection with Manafort.

Another former Trump associate, Michael Cohen, admitted last week that he lied to Congress about an aborted plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, has cooperated with Mueller’s team in seven interviews reportedly totaling 70 hours of participation. He is expected to be sentenced on Dec. 12.

But while those matters are among the recent developments to be made public in the Mueller probe, it’s not likely that Flynn had dished to the special counsel about them in particular, according to David Weinstein, a defense attorney and former federal prosecutor.

“The cooperation does not appear to be against Manafort or Cohen or it wouldn’t have been blacked out,” Weinstein said of the sentencing memo.

A wall, in its most basic form, is a physical barrier. A wall can keep people out or hold people in and almost always creates some sort of divide. In Berlin, it was an infamous blockade, and in America it’s an emblem of a fiery, divisive, political debate. So how will this time be remembered in history, if at all? Watch the video above to learn what history can tell us about the U.S.-Mexico border today.

A wall, in its most basic form, is a physical barrier. In isolation, it’s not political.

A wall can keep people out or hold people in and almost always creates some sort of divide. In China it was an ancient defense system and that became a national landmark. In Berlin, it was an infamous blockade, and in America it’s an emblem of a fiery, divisive, political debate. So how will this time be remembered in history, if at all?

Watch the video above to learn what history can tell us about the U.S.-Mexico border today.

Trump chalked up his decision in no small part to his desire to keep oil prices low and protect U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Trump’s Twitter “thank you” to the Saudis was notable for several reasons. Second, by thanking the Saudis, Trump did something that he once criticized as a sign of weakness and idiocy. It’s not clear how this plays into Trump’s calculus, or whether the president truly intends to pursue ultra-low prices. The White House did not respond to a request for clarification on

The following week, oil fell below $55 a barrel and Trump took to Twitter to heap praise on Saudi Arabia and urge the kingdom to keep driving down the cost of crude:

One day earlier, Trump announced he would stand by Saudi Arabia, despite the CIA reportedly concluding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was likely involved in Khashoggi’s death. Trump chalked up his decision in no small part to his desire to keep oil prices low and protect U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Trump’s Twitter “thank you” to the Saudis was notable for several reasons. First and foremost, it’s widely seen as part of a broader effort to dissuade the Saudis from cutting output and boosting prices, even though the OPEC alliance is widely expected to do just that this week.

Second, by thanking the Saudis, Trump did something that he once criticized as a sign of weakness and idiocy. In a March 2012 tweet, Trump said the Saudis “manipulate the price then think we are idiots and will thank them for agreeing to release some more oil. We need a leader who knows how to deal with OPEC.”

Lastly, the tweet raises questions about how low is low enough for Trump. The president has not made that clear, but in tweets in 2012 and 2013, he said crude oil is not worth more than $30 a barrel, and while $40 might be acceptable, $25 is ideal.

Analysts already warn that oil prices at $50 a barrel will start to put financial pressure on U.S. drillers, who rely on expensive techniques like hydraulic fracturing to produce oil and gas. It’s not clear how this plays into Trump’s calculus, or whether the president truly intends to pursue ultra-low prices.

The White House did not respond to a request for clarification on Trump’s preferred oil price.

US and China hammer out 90-day trade truce — Seven experts break down what that means for investors 11 Hours Ago | 04:21China is reportedly confused by the Trump administration’s version of what happened in Buenos Aires. It’s just madness,” the former official, who asked for anonymity to describe confidential discussions, told the Post. The White House said the nations had agreed to a 90-day truce on trade. Following the meeting, Trump told reporters it was “an incredible deal” and that it “goes

US and China hammer out 90-day trade truce — Seven experts break down what that means for investors 11 Hours Ago | 04:21

China is reportedly confused by the Trump administration’s version of what happened in Buenos Aires.

After the key meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, officials from Beijing are “puzzled and irritated” by the Trump administration’s behavior, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing a former U.S. government official who has been in contact with the Chinese officials.

“You don’t do this with the Chinese. You don’t triumphantly proclaim all their concessions in public. It’s just madness,” the former official, who asked for anonymity to describe confidential discussions, told the Post.

The two world leaders met over dinner during the G-20 summit in Argentina last week. The White House said the nations had agreed to a 90-day truce on trade. Following the meeting, Trump told reporters it was “an incredible deal” and that it “goes down, certainly, if it happens, it goes down as one of the largest deals ever made.”

But the Post reported that the Chinese have not acknowledged a 90-day deadline for the talks and have not said that they would “immediately” increase purchases of U.S. farm goods.